The End Of The Bronze Age

Between approximately 1200 and 1150 B.C. a great disaster befell the civilized world of the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean. The cites and fortified places of Crete, Myceneae, Anatolia and upper Mesopotamia were suddenly overrun and burned by a people who left few traces beyond widespread destruction. Lower Mespoamia and Egypt were threatened but escaped devastation Robert Drews, a Professor of Classics at Vanderbilt University, attempts to explain who did this and how.

His balanced book first considers the Bronze Age in general and then systematically surveys the destruction of the various locales during what he terms "The Catastrophe," (the first half of the 12th c. B.C.) He devotes several chapters to surveying the causes of the event that has been proposed in traditional scholarship-earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, systems collapses, mass migrations and the appearance of iron weapons in the early Iron Age. His own explanation is a combination of several of these, plus what might be called innovations in military organization and weaponry.

During much of the Bronze Age, great powers like Egypt and the Hittites relied primarily on the use of chariots on the battlefield, from which charioteers shot arrows at the enemy and broke up mass formations of ground troops. Beyond the movement of "runners" between the chariot lines, there was no real use of infantry as a tactical arm. In fact, the infantry was usually regarded as defensive element. The catastrophe was caused, according to Drew, by the sudden and unexpected appearance of a new military force (called the "Sea People" by the Egyptians) throughout the eastern Mediterranean at the beginning of the 12th century. For about 50 years the invaders roamed the region and ravaged civilizations that has been founded on bronze metallurgy They were equipped with new weapons (thrust and slash swords, javelins, etc.) and defensive armor (helmets, greaves, corselets and small, round shields). In the absence of hard documentary evidence, the author infers that a new military organization accompanied these material advances, resulting in a new type of fighting force, one that relied on the fighting ability of the individual man in infantry formations and the increasing use of iron weapons. In the final analysis, these 12th century fighters bear a striking resemblance to Greek hoplites and their phalanxes in the Heroic Age.

Drew's book is closely reasoned, variously building on or critiquing the work of other important scholars in the field; it is methodically, if not brillantly, written. He provides a detailed bibliography of his sources and a general index that at best can only be termed "thin." He provides passable illustrations of some of the principal visual sources (stelae, tomb inscriptions etc) for his arguments but musters only a single map and, at that, a very poor line drawing of the eastern Mediterranean that shows no real detail. Drew offers no startling new evidence for the mystery of the 12th BC but does review the problem with authority and suggests a solution that relies on a recasting of the known information. His book will be read and commented on by those who have an interest in the effects of warfare, migration and external threats by precivilized peoples on the ancient civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean and upper Mesopotamia. Recommended.